Gloriana looked sick. She couldn't help but turn around in order to block her view of what remained of her former 'rival'.

"I thought I could handle it, but it's too much for me. It's too disgusting!"

"Corpses are never pretty." Ves remarked as he demateralized his Amastendira.

He looked down at the body which had gained a very large and conspicuous burn hole through the chest.

Unlike Ves, Aisling did not possess a Jutland organ or the like. Her augmentations and genetic treatments purely focused on upgrading her cognitive functions. Ves was pretty sure her head was tougher than it looked, though he doubted it could resist the firepower of his favorite laser pistol!

Gloriana tried to cheer herself up. "I'm glad that she got what she deserved. Aisling Curver is a horrible woman. She doesn't respect or love you like I do. You would have become a puppet of the awful Friday Coalition if she managed to sink her claws into you. Aren't you happy that I got to you first?"

Ves knew without a doubt that he would definitely suffer if he didn't answer to her satisfaction!

"I am, haha! You're a wonderful woman, Gloriana. I couldn't ask for a better wife to spend the rest of my life with. The mechs that we will design together will be just as perfect as our love!"

"Oh, Ves…" Gloriana softened up and released a loving sigh. "If not for the awful lump of burning flesh next to us, I would have given you a reward by now. As it is…"

"It's a long day, honey. I still have a lot of duties to attend to. I'll probably be busy for several days straight in order to handle the aftermath of the Battle of Reckoning."

He had never taken part in a battle of scale, and neither did most of the Larkinsons. A lot of work had to be done to wrap everything up and allow the expeditionary fleet to resume its journey in the best condition possible.

Ves hadn't even spoken with Colonel Ariadne Wodin and Patriarch Reginald Cross yet about how to distribute the rich spoils they managed to secure. He was already salivating to get his hands on as many expert mech remains as possible!

Gloriana eventually moved to leave.

"I really can't stand being in the same room as a dead body. Please make sure to clean up the mess. I don't want any piece of her to remain intact and whole."

"Don't worry. I'll just look and see if I can salvage anything from her brain and implant before I dispose of the bodily remains."

His wife snorted as she walked away. "Don't bother. The typical security arrangements of a high-quality implant rules out any way to retrieve any data."

Even though he knew that, he still held a treasure hunter's mindset. He didn't want to rule out any option until he received solid proof.

When Gloriana exited the room, Ves turned to his bodyguard.

"Give me another box."

Nitaa passed over a familiar-looking metal box. When Ves opened it, he inspected the P-stone resting within. Once he saw that it was completely empty, he turned his attention to Aisling's body.

A fair amount of time had passed, causing Aisling's mind to collapse and dissipate.

Ves already expected to encounter this situation. Unlike expert pilots, mech designers were wired in a different fashion. They did not possess an unnaturally high willpower, but instead concentrated their spirituality in a condensed design seed for a lack of a better word.

From his own understanding of design seeds, they were very dense and resilient.

Ves speculated that once Journeymen died, their design seeds wouldn't evaporate in an instant like the rest of their fragile minds.

His guess hit the mark. Aisling's design seed still looked as solid and whole as a minute ago. It didn't seem to deteriorate anytime soon.

Of course, Ves had no idea what happened to them. Would they break down at a slower pace than normal? Would they slip into the imaginary realm and evolve into something else? Would they just.. fade out of the material dimensions and enter into a realm that is specific to mechs?

No matter what was supposed to happen, Aisling's design seed could forget about getting away!

Ves may not be able to salvage the valuable research data in her implant, but it was a different matter when it came to her spiritual essence!

As a mech designer himself, he knew that the rest of a Journeyman's mind was not that essential. Ves had no interest in retaining any portion of Aisling aside from the literal crystallization of her design philosophy.

He could think about how to make use of it later. Right now, he just wanted to add it to his collection.

Salvaging the design seed was as simple as picking up the design seed with a spiritual projection before depositing it into a waiting P-stone.

It seemed that when Aisling died, her mental barrier and all of her mental defenses had collapsed. Her mind and design seed should have reacted violently to any intrusions if she was still alive, but since that was not the case, Ves didn't encounter any opposition.

"Interesting."

As Ves looked carefully at Aisling's intact design seed, he became a bit uncertain.

Was Aisling still alive? Was there any living part of her that still resided in her design seed? Did the design seed exist as a separate autonomous life form or was it purely an extension of the mech designer who created it? All of these questions and more momentarily overwhelmed his mind.

"Ah, whatever! I'll figure this out later!"

All that mattered for the moment was that he collected all of the spiritual loot he could obtain from this battle.

His only regret was that he had missed out on too many opportunities to harvest more spirits. The enemy fielded 11 expert pilots in total! He could have used up all of his P-stones if he was in a position to salvage the crumbling will and spirits of those extraordinary mech pilots!

Sadly, it wasn't as if he could hop on board a shuttle and fly next to an expert mech that just got wrecked while the battle was still raging hot. The risks were far too great. If his shuttle was attacked by a couple of mechs, then Ves didn't think his Unending Regalia would be able to protect him against the excess shock or heat that would sweep over his entire body!

By this time, the spiritualities of all of those dead expert pilots had already faded away. It was no use even if the Larkinsons brought back the bodies before his feet. He had already tried to do so for Venerable Kelvin Praetor when the Trost got demolished right next to the Spirit of Bentheim, but too much time had passed.

These failures taught him that the only way he could realistically harvest an expert pilot's spirituality was to be right next to them with a P-stone within reach when they died!

"What an onerous restriction!"

It was too difficult to ensure that Ves would have more opportunities to expand his collection. His expert pilots would not only have to fight against an opponent that was at least equally as dangerous, but also achieve victory without taking any lives.

Ves shook his head. "I shouldn't be too impatient. Perhaps I'll figure out a better solution one day."

He decided to take stock of his spiritual spoils.

The three special containers were still within his reach. He opened every box and inspected the contents of every P-stone resting inside.

Obviously, Ghanso's spiritual remains were not in the best of shape. The method that Ves used to extract his spirituality from his mind was so crude and destructive that the P-stone was filled with several ugly pieces.

Ves expected them to merge back together, but it seemed they weren't capable of doing so. He didn't detect much activity in any of the remnants.

While Ves speculated that it might be possible to 'resurrect' Venerable Ghanso in a spiritual form, he probably wouldn't be the same as his old self. Too much had been lost.

"Of course, I have no intentions of reviving an enemy of mine."

He might as well point his Amastendira at himself and pull the trigger if that was the case!

Instead of seeking to bring an aspect of Ghanso back to life, Ves would rather use his powerful spiritual remains as an ingredient for a greater project.

As long as Ves cleansed and stripped the broken pieces of Ghanso's spirit of everything hateful, he would still be left with something strong that could empower any design spirit!

"Hehe. Rest well, Ghanso." He grinned. "I know you don't want to, but you'll be working for the Larkinson Clan one way or another. Death is not an escape when I'm involved!"

He inspected the P-stone holding Venerable Relia Foster's spirituality next. Different from Ghanso, Foster's spirituality was relatively whole and intact.

Even though she died in a very bloody and aggrieved fashion, her will and spirit had remained strong no matter how much pain that Dise and Ketis inflicted on her body.

Ves admired her perseverance. She truly exhibited the qualities of an expert pilot at that time.

Due to being ready to receive her the moment her broken body finally succumbed to death, he managed to harvest her entire spirituality with remarkably few problems.

Not only that, but Ves still sensed a powerful will from within. The P-stone actually radiated a weak force of will for that reason!

"This is much greater than with Ghanso!"

While Ghanso's spiritual remnant was also contaminated by his extraordinary will, it was much weaker and less active.

Whereas Ghanso's remains gave Ves the impression of a pile of body parts, Foster's remains seemed like a whole but comatose body. Her spirituality didn't appear to be conscious, but it still had some qualities that were definitely alive.

Frankly, Ves was amazed by what he managed to obtain. This prize might possibly be the most valuable haul from this battle. Not even the Auralis in her entirety could compare to the complete and relatively-intact spirituality of a promising and talented expert pilot!

The only problem was that Ves had no clue what to do with it. He supposed he could chop it up and turn it into an ingredient, but that sounded far too wasteful to him. He could draw upon plenty of ingredients to create his design spirits.

He should find another purpose for Venerable Foster's spirituality. One that would hopefully yield an entirely different result.

Would it be possible to transplant it into another mind or body?

"What if.. what if I clone Foster's body and put this spirit inside its new shell?"

It was theoretically possible. While there were bound to be a lot of problems, Ves guessed that he might technically be able to 'revive' Venerable Foster.

What a crazy and audacious plan!

Something like this was definitely unheard of. If he succeeded, the implications were enormous. Yet if he failed, he would have probably wasted a very strong and valuable spirit!

"I can't take this risk!"

There was no point to reviving Venerable Foster anyway. He wasn't short of expert pilots these days and the last thing he wanted to do was to revive one of his enemies.

"At the very least, I should cut some parts out while adding some other stuff inside."

Was it possible for him to turn Venerable Foster's spirit into a deeply loyal member of the Larkinson Clan by cutting out the parts that were hostile and implanting a spiritual fragment from the Golden Cat?

Even if it was possible, Ves instinctively repelled these measures. This was playing with life on a much deeper level than before. Human life was sacred. Toying with it in this fashion was far too close to playing god!

"I'm not a god!" He insisted.

He needed to forget about these macabre experiments and focus on how he could use his spoils to empower his mech designs. That was the right way to apply his spiritual abilities.

As soon as his thoughts strayed in this direction, he came up with an interesting idea.

"What if I design a self-resonating expert mech?" He wondered. "Would a normal pilot be able to gain the power of an expert pilot without actually being one?"

This was an interesting idea!